It’s Back…Confessions of a Fed-Up Flight Attendant…A Brand New FA Spills the Beans! – Part #13

Yahoo returns with their “Confessions of a Fed-Up Flight Attendant” series, though FA “Betty” is gone, replaced with “Jenny”. Jenny is frustrated as the airline where she has devoted 18 years of her life is merging with another airline and seems to keep adding foreign and regional partners on a daily basis. She claims she is constantly walking on eggshells with new policies and new people.

Thanks to Mark from Yahoo for sharing once again with our readers. Below is a snippet of the first entry in the new series (13th in total) and you can check out the full post here and a new one each Monday.

One thing that has not changed. One more confession and I will stop. I feel better already. You know when you are not allowed to get up and go to the bathroom? Specifically, like during takeoff and landing? That’s when we go pee. Really. You think we are all buckled up and happily waiting for touchdown when we are actually taking our turn in the lav. That is, of course, if we actually know where it is.

Passengers are crankier. The invention of premium economy class seats is one of the few changes I do like. “Middle class” is a good thing on a plane. Business or first-class passengers can be needy, and dare I say it, pretentious. Economy passengers are cramped and cranky. But give people more space and a tiny perk or two for a relatively small amount of money (compared to a biz-class seat) and they truly mellow out. Those seats should actually be called the “Zen” seats. People with more legroom are pleasant. I call them in-betweeners and reward them with extra snacks and my best pretend perkiness.

There are too many new flight attendants. The merger seems to have weeded out some of the old guard like myself, leaving us flying with perky newcomers. Perky wears off in about a year. If they are lucky, they will have a few years of being content with the job and excited about the travel, but that too will eventually wear off. I flew to São Paulo last year for the first time. I saw the hotel and nothing else. Not one of the strangers on the flight crew had any interest in seeing the city. Not even the perky newcomers.

We almost never know the other crewmembers on a flight. I used know my fellow crewmembers at least half of the time. Now, it rarely happens. The mergers are partly to blame, but it’s more than that. It’s the nature of the job to travel halfway across the country to get to work and not always know if you’ll even get to work a flight when you get there. We meet our fellow crewmembers just before you do. Is that really safe? I always felt safer when I knew and trusted the team on board the aircraft.

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Adam is the proud founder and CEO of both Point Me to the Plane and award booking site Juicy Miles. An international consultant turned TV programming strategist, Adam currently works full-time on both websites.
His obsession with points and miles dates back to his freshman year at college. After browsing Flyertalk and Mileage Workshop, Adam pulled the trigger and signed up for his first Citibank AAdvantage credit card and MCI phone line (yes, landlines still existed). Back then, both deals were churnable and in no time at all, the college freshman had enough miles to travel to Europe and Asia in First Class for free, multiple times. Needless to say, he was hooked!
Fast forward a few years and Adam of course ended up in a career with a heavy travel requirement…which meant extra miles for awards! As his colleagues and friends started to hear about and see pictures from his trips, they wanted in on the secret and Adam began to assist them with their bookings, Juicy Miles was born. At the same time, Adam started an email newsletter to prevent those less obsessed co-workers from squandering their point collection opportunities. The bi-weekly email covered everything from upcoming promotions, guidance on maximizing points, and redemption advice. The distribution quickly expanded outside the office and Point Me to the Plane became a BoardingArea blog.